Sunday, October 26, 2008

Oysters, bar fights and Red Sox heartache


We took the most beloved weekend on the cape and made our journey to enjoy the festive delights of the annual Oysterfest in Wellfleet. Wellfleet is the town where Jamey and i first met. i handed him a basket of dirty laundry and asked him to bring it to my room to which he looked at me and said nothing. What a jerk. It was total love at first site. Wellfleet was the first town I ever lived on my own, out of Virginia and it will always have a piece of my heart.

Wellfleet was our stomping ground for about a year. We frolicked and played along the towering golden sand dunes, drank good new england beer by bonfire on chilly nights and howled at the full moon in the dead of winter. There is nothing that is more Cape Cod to us than that crusty fishing town squeezed between the bay and the Atlantic ocean. In one afternoon you can surf with the harbor seals and in a matter of minutes be digging oysters out of the bay for a salty seafood smorgasbord. And that is why we worship the wellfleet oyster. They are much like the salty people of its town. Its tough exterior and rough edges can cut you but if you are careful enough you can cajole one to open up and reveal to you the glory of a surprisingly loving core. If oysters can have a loving core that is, which for this metaphor, they do.

Oysterfest started the year before we moved to Wellfleet. Ever since we lived up there, whatever our situation, we always made it out to Wellfleet for the festival. It was a chance to catch up with old friends and neighbors and of course, drink a beer at the Bombshelter. The bombshelter is this little gem of a bar, underneath a restaurant called the Bookstore. Yes, the Bombshelter is in fact underground and ever there was a reason to need a fall out shelter I would hope that it would have a full bar just like this one, and of course a pool table and a juke box and a really surly bartender that has worked there FOREVER. The first night of the Oysterfest we met up with some friends a new restaurant on the waterfront that was spinning some good music and had a great laid back atmosphere however we were soon itching to leave because we knew the Sox were playing game four of the ALCS against the Tampa poopy Bay Rays. After a couple of drinks from the hot pink punch, a bunch of us moseyed over to the Bombshelter to watch the game. This year we were excited to actually be in Mass. when the Sox were in the finals. Every year prior we have been either in a car loaded with ALL of our belongings headed south for the winter or, well, yeah, usually that is what we were doing. Moving. Again. So this year we did things backwards and we were actually going to Massachusetts and we were psyched to be able to celebrate with local fans.


(Go Wellfleet!)

After ordering a round of beers and I think there was some tequila thrown in there for good measure, we were enjoying the game and the sox were up three runs. It was all fun and games until all of the sudden we started feeling a great pressure and pushing from the crowd smushing us up against the bar. I looked back at Jamey to try and figure out what was wrong and low and behold a short but very round woman was throwing her weight into the crowd. Now, mind you, I wouldnt have thought twice about it except that she was about 250 pounds, about 45 years old and clearly hell bent on getting to the bar to order another drink, oh yeah, and there were 5,000 people in the bar already. When this beauty finally did reach the bar, after much rolling and sloppy grossness, she started stringing words together, from which we could only deduce she was ordering another drink, because clearly she hadn't had enough already. For whatever reason the bartender did not see her or chose to ignore her or was unable to understand flobbersloselnoodlelam, the drink she ordered. At this point we were thoroughly grossed out and annoyed at the amount of space she was demanding and we started trying to push her away from the bar and out the door. Her poor friend, clearly sober, was embarrassed and asking her to stop acting that way and to leave but doing nothing to really help the situation.

Well, then it got really interesting. We just wanted to watch the Sox, not this disgusting drunk blob. When we were against the bar this lady started caressing Jamey's hair and fondling his back as she attempted to keep herself standing using the bar and the crowd to right herself. It was at this moment that Jamey had had enough and started shouting into the crowd for people to help get her the hell out of there. Ummm, gross about sums it up. After trying to call attention to blob drunk lady and no one seemed to be responding, Jamey decided to take matters into his own hands and force her away from him. He was able to push her about 12 inches before all hell broke loose and she went from loving Jamey to wanting to kill Jamey with her fist. And she tried. As he pushed her she whipped around and cold cocked him in the face. Stunned, Jamey kept shouting to get her out of the bar and proceeded to use a modified hog tying technique by grabbing her flailing fists and locking them together and using all of his weight to push her out the door. Somewhere in the middle of all of this her elbow caught his lip and drew blood. At this point I realized that I wanted a piece of her because I knew Jamey would never hit a "lady" if that's what we want to call her. So I started to charge the woman because I really wanted the opportunity to defend my mans honor with physical violence. I mean, I am never in that situation, I was ready to throw down. This was a good cause and it was the Bombshelter and behavior like that is generally permissible. So as I went into a dive to land on top of her like a wrestler, Jamey caught me and lifted me back behind him with little difficulty. It was a futile attempt. At this point, my friend Amy had informed the bartender that there was a lady throwing punches. When he heard this news he was surprisingly agile and leapt over the bar, landed near the scuffle and began to drag the lady out while Jamey kept pushing her from behind, hands still hog tied.

Now the question I ask now is, does this lady wake up in the morning and have a good laugh about her crazy night out or does she hide in a hole for the rest of her life because she's an embarrassment to women and mankind in general? All in all the night was a success, the Red Sox won that game, we danced and caught up with friends we hadn't seen in years and we beat up a drunk lady or a drunk lady beat up Jamey. It was all I could have asked for, it was an authentic Massachusetts night out.

For a clearer picture of what this lady looked like I have rendered a drawing for dramatic effect.
This picture shows the bartender that eventually helped us boot the drunk lady out. He's in the background, never mind Amy and I enjoying the rinds of our limes. Yum.


oystershucking on main street

Below are some pics I took on the plan ride up there of the fall colors! enjoy! and Please keep the peace, fight with your minds not your fists people. It only gets you fat lips and bruised eyes.

Boston on approach

dead people in a cemetery enjoying the fall colors

golf course!

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